BOOKS mood People lie shamelessly, and other people believe them. Angry teen-agers screech at one another from behind pseudonymous masks. I've had some shockingly unpleasant electronic en- counters, having started and recently sold an Internet service-and-software company. Just the other day, a disgruntled young man whom I've never met posted a public message expressing the desire to see my hands blown off in an explosion. When Stoll complains that network postings are often "ungrammatical, mis- spelled, and poorly organized," and when Danny Goodman notes that "some people in the on -line world truly enjoy being royal pains," they have my sympathy. The valuable mesh of rules governing traditional discourse-rules of libel and slander, privacy, copyright, and ordinary etiquette-have yet to make the transition. As the messy on- line democracy sorts itself out, there will be a need for coolheaded souls like Stoll-assuming he has not retreated to bread-baking after all. The Internet is a transformation of our world, and in the course of things it has been carelessly sanctified here and there. A newcomer to the Internet should be prepared for all the confusion, awkwardness, and intellectual violence catalogued in these books. Even on the sidelines, no one could argue with the first pillar of Goodman's proposed "Personal Action Plan": "Greet each new information superhighway tech- nology preannouncement with both an open mind and a healthy dose of skepticism." . MIDLIFE SUCCESS A darkly comic novel of a writer's dubious fame. BY HAL E5PEN X AINST all odds, After mixed success novelists continue 7 with a political theme to write novels. ___ ('Waking the Dead," in Faced with competition 1986) and a sprawling from movies, television, historical novel ("Secret pop music, and the on- Anniversaries," in 1990), line universes of the com- -:: Spencer has returned to a puter epoch, fiction writ- .... .... I \ more congenial domestic- ers have adopted any num- J :/ anxiety mode. Sam Hol- ber of defensive market- \ land, the main narrator ing strategies, ranging of Spencer's sIXth novel, from tailoring entertain- "Men in Black" (Knopf; ments for specific genres $23), is a serious novel- to narrowcasting for vari- ist who has never man- ous demographic niches." aged to find the kind of The middlebrow reading l uplifting success that audience has increasingly Spencer himself had looked elsewhere to en- Scott Spencer with "Endless Love" counter the sweeping dramatic urgency, (1979), his third novel. ("Endless Love" the reportorial alertness, and the psycho- was made into an unfortunate movie logical acuity that were the novel's tra- starring Brooke Shields, a fact that has ditional virtues, and this tendency has harmed the book's reputation, which had an especially strong impact on the should be very high.) Having left Man- once crowded ranks of male American hattan for a semirural town to the north, authors. Few novelists of a certain age- Sam barely supports his family and his wnters like the forty-nine-year-old Scott fiction habit by writing pseudonymous >- Spencer, for instance-have managed to nonfiction books like "Traveling with sustain a serious, determinedly conven - Your Pet" and "Crystal Death," which is tlonal career in literary fiction. The broad about the nutritional terrors of salt. His o rruddle ground has become a lonely place. latest clip job, "Visitors from Above," is 89 "'t '.' '.' ," >Ii ".: v. "". .."". '\, <"y REWRITING THE SOUL Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory an Hac ing W hy has "multiple personality disorder" suddenly become the psychological disorder of our times11s there some- thing about life in the 90s that causes personal identities to shatter into fragments1 These are the questions that the distinguished philosopher Ian Hacking sets out to answer in this intriguing new book. Cloth: 524.95 ISBN o-691-03642-X AVAILABLE AT FINE BOOKSTORES PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Sales & Purchase. Yacht Charter. Management. The experts -Worldwide. CALL 1-800-626-0019 FOR FULL COLOUR CHARTER BROCHURE AND COMPANY PROFILE Yachting Partners International 28/29 Richmond Place, Brighton BN2 2NA, England Telephone: (44)1273 571722 Fax: (44)1273 571720 If YACHANG PARTNERS -( -Jnlf'iIwlilfW1- " I . -:. . . - --9' . --..... _... . ... .-. . . .. _ _.. ... r... . . . . . - ----==--...... - - - bamh- 8Ulen CJ)es& Sculpture with Function Coffee Table" Iron, Glass, Copper Patina . limIted Edition 226 E Canon Perdldo Santa Barbara, CA 93.10 I 805-963-0998 Call for Brochure .. ,"",", """"- " Gay Travelers: Stay Put I!! Lntil you get the inside scoop from OUT & .4BOUT, the award-wmning newsletter for ga)' and lesbian travelers. Called "Savvy" (NY Times), "Smart" (OUT), "Thorough" (LA Times) and "Piquant" (Ctv Traveler). If you travel, you'll use It. ",0 ads. No compromise:;. Just the truth in gay travel. 849 for 10 issue". Call 1-800-929-2268 to subscribe.